In Fatal Games (1984) someone is “stopping the nation’s top athletes…dead in their tracks.” And that someone is skulking around a janky, decrepit athletic academy which doesn’t look like it’d produce a decent Sunday Beer Leaguer let alone an Olympic-caliber athlete.
Seriously. The sports field is full of weeds, the change rooms very Soviet/commie bloc, the pool concrete is crumbling.
Athletes at Falcon Academy are training for “nationals,” and have to compete with universities with billion dollar endowments. However, when you look at their facilities you’d probably want your tetanus shots up to date.
The school is unscrupulous in other respects too: the same coach who teaches track, teaches gymnastics. And javelin. And swimming. The athletic director is pushing performance enhancing drugs, while the school nurse takes advantage of the female gymnasts.
Citius, Altius, Fortius. Caveat emptor!
Fatal Games dials back the violence and ratchets up the nudity. This 80s slasher is Gold Medal-worthy at least when it comes to bodies.
If you want to compare kill-to-kill, however, Graduation Day, which features a track team stalked by some creep – is a lot more creative. Which isn’t saying much, as that’s hardly a classic for the ages.
**1/2 (out of 5)
Really Awful Movies 